Contemplating The Peculiar Politics of Christ

Dear God of reckless, boundary-breaking Love,

When that lawyer stood up to test Jesus, he wanted a clean answer — a checklist, a formula, a fence around who deserves mercy and who doesn't. But You told the story of a man left bleeding in a ditch on the Jericho road, and the two religious professionals who crossed to the other side. Their robes stayed clean. Their schedules stayed intact. And a dying man stayed alone.

Then came the Samaritan — the outsider, the one no respectable theologian would quote in a sermon — and he knelt in the dirt. He poured oil and wine into wounds that weren't his problem. He loaded a stranger onto his own donkey and walked the dusty miles on foot. He opened his wallet at the inn and said, "Whatever it costs, put it on my account."

Lord, that is Your politics. Not the politics of platforms and positions, but the scandalous politics of the Holy Spirit moving a person's feet toward suffering instead of away from it. Fill me with that same reckless anointing today. Give me eyes that see the beaten traveler on my own road — the coworker drowning in silence, the neighbor whose lights stay off too long, the stranger everyone else steps around.